Reedy Creek Park & Nature Preserve

From all of us – Thank You Sandy!

The day was bright and clear though a bit chilly in the early morning…..   

We had 70 starts with 160 participants. 

Due to a mix up by the park rangers, we ended up sharing the shelter with a disc golf tournament.  Fortunately their time table and ours were different such that all their folks gathered prior to our starts and then they were mostly gone when most of out folks arrived.  And we were gone when they re-gathered, so it all worked out.   But it did make for a very full parking lot. 

It seems everyone who went out on White, Yellow and Orange, did complete their course – except for 2 on Yellow who may just have failed to check in with the organizers.  This is always a good sign for the course setter, knowing that the courses were doable by all.  On all 3 of these courses, the longest times were about 3 times longer than the best times.  Since some people choose to walk and others run, and since some are much more experienced than others who may be doing it for the first time, this range of finish times is not surprising.   

 For the white course, a note was added to their map bag.  It read  

“White Course Notes: 

1. In an orienteering meet, you need to punch the controls in the correct order, as provided on your control sheet (which is printed on the map).  On this course, the first control you will see is not the first one on your course. Don’t punch that one yet.  Always check the number at the control flag (on the electronic box) to make sure it matches the correct number on your control sheet.   

1. Control #5 is not a typical White level control, because you can not see the flag from the trail.  You will have to pay attention to the trail junctions and curves and to the two lakes to know when to head into the woods to find the flag.” 

This is my way of trying to include a wee bit of instruction too help improve people’s orienteering skills.  Control # 5 was really more of a Yellow level control, so it will hopefully serve as a preparation for moving up to the next level.  

Green and Red are the advanced level courses.  You can see by the times posted and the number of Did Not Finish  (DNF) that they were challenging.  On the red course control # 133 was not at the correct location, but rather was at a pile of rocks about 30 meters to the northwest.  I had it marked correctly when I first created the course map but didn’t check the final print out closely enough to see that it had been mis-marked.   

This meet could have not been completed with out the help of a number of people . 

• Special thanks to Dexter Cox from the Air Force ROTC at East Meck High School, and his wife Michelle who managed the registration, start and finish for all the ROTC starts. 
• Thanks to Dalen who put out most of the white course markers starting at 7:30 on Saturday morning. 
• Thanks to Hannah and my wife Cilla who helped get the registration area set up for the meet, and Michael and Cilla who helped with registration. 
• Thanks also to Dan Davis, who did some instruction for some new orienteers at the meet. 
• And thanks again to Michael, and also another Michael and Matthew all from the Adventure Race team and Samual and Kenneth who helped pick up all the controls at the end of the meet.
• And special thanks to Walter Siegenthaler, who printed the maps, prepped the map packets – adding finger sticks as needed, prepared the registration reports and start lists, delivered all those to the park,  and took the money from those who were not able to pay on line and for one lost finger stick (at $36) to deposit in the club’s bank account.    Thank you Walter for all you do. 

I really appreciate all your assistance! 

    Here are the results [Time = min:sec]: